A SOCIO-COGNITIVE CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF COLONIAL IDEOLOGY IN E. M. FORSTER’S A PASSAGE TO INDIA: A VAN DIJKIAN PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

This study investigates how language in A Passage to India constructs, reflects, and sustains colonial ideology through discourse practices embedded in the text. The primary objective is to examine how linguistic choices contribute to the reproduction of colonial power relations and racial hierarchies. The study is grounded in Teun A. van Dijk’s socio-cognitive model of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). A qualitative research design is employed. The data consist of selected textual extracts from A Passage to India. These extracts are purposively sampled based on their relevance to ideological discourse. The analysis follows a three-level CDA framework: (1) discourse structures, (2) social cognition and (3) socio-political context. The analysis shows that linguistic features and expressions are ideologically charged.  The study contributes by applying a fully integrated socio-cognitive CDA model to A Passage to India to demonstrate how discourse operates simultaneously at linguistic, cognitive, and ideological levels. The research advances CDA scholarship by illustrating how literary discourse not only represents colonial reality but actively constructs cognitive frameworks that sustain ideological systems.